While running into some problems of explaining to a woman who runs a tourism homepage, what our last show Mum’s the Word was about, we realized we had to find other ways of defining the kind of theatre that we were making. In searching for a way of explaining to her what it was we were doing, and how best to sell our show to people who haven’t had much contact with theatre and art, it became clear to us that maybe vocabulary taken from TV and Film would be helpful, and indeed very fitting to what we needed. We looked at the structure of our show, and realized that not only had we taken an approach widely known from TV-series in terms of writing, we also structured our rehearsals in a similar manner. Our actors did not have to carry long monologues and keep their energy flowing through the 2 hours of a standard theatre performance. This kind of theatre was different.
They had to be very precise in how they presented their characters. They had to know every detail and secret of who their character was. They had to be able to play short scenes but be spot on at the same time, and if asked by a member of the audience, they had to be able to respond in a way that would not give away too much of what was happening in future ‘episodes’ but also keep the audience wanting for more and being genuine as their character, because otherwise the member of the audience would immediately see the actor behind the character and the illusion would implode.
Our performances took place on several days of a 2 week run. But, and this is very important, they were linked. In order to get the full story, you had to view every single performance, which we call episodes. You bought one ticket, and were invited to all 4 live performances (episodes). They took place in different parts of the city and were known only to those who had purchased a ticket. It was like watching a TV-series over a two week period, except that it was live and you could interact with the performers, and indeed become a performer yourself.
I would like to call this kind of theatre “Episodic Theatre”. A theatre that uses several connecting performances like episodes and where the full story is divided up and revealed only to those who watch all episodes. Of course our visions go further than that, a 2 month run would be interesting for example. You buy one ticket and see about an episode a week for 2 months. A very complex task not only for the writer, but also for the performers and directors. How do you keep your knowledge of the character alive? How do you become the character when you rarely ever play them? How expensive is this kind of theatre, especially if some of the performances are one-on-one shows. And is it even feasible, would an audience have enough time to go and see a performance every week for a month or more? Are audiences these days willing to do that? I think they are. Once you capture someone’s interest with a good story they will want to go on. The problem is creating interest and explaining the concept to people who haven’t heard of it.
The term episodic might of course be problematic, due to the associations with Brecht. Indeed this kind of theatre is similar to epic theatre in that the way stories are written and the dramaturgy of the whole play could be termed epic. Still there are important differences to Brecht’s concept, since we derive episodic from TV-series episodes, not from the dramaturgical structure of the journey of our characters, even though the two are somehow intertwined. One of the big differences is that our actors must live the characters at all times, they must fully become them, otherwise the open audience-performer setting doesn’t work. Furthermore we do not necessarily seek to distance the audience and critique society, even though this would be very interesting, and marrying Brecht with our work is truly a thought provoking concept. It would be wonderful to hear your thoughts on this, especially from people who have seen Mum’s The Word. Moreover any other terms we could use are very welcome. We are open for suggestions from academics, practitioners and audiences alike.
I am very aware that similar theatre experiments have been done before, but, as far as I know, nothing that had this particular structure. If you know of anything similar, please comment below or write us an email! We would love to hear your thoughts. If you have any ideas on the implementation of episodic theatre outside of festivals, especially into the programming of bigger venues (actual theatre spaces) please let us know. I am very much of the opinion that theatre venues don’t have to concentrate on their own physical theatre space, but can program outside of it, as an addition to their programme. It might reach audiences that weren’t interested in theatre and performance before.
philipp ehmann 11th december 2011
company director QUILT
director ‘mum’s the word’
) we’re excited! i hope you are too! more infos coming soon, watch this space! (or my twitter).
